James Russ

Professor, Physics

Education

Ph.D., Princeton University

Research

My research has two thrusts - accelerator-based experiments involving particles containing heavy quarks, and an astro-particle experiment aimed at uncovering possible point sources for ultra-high-energy neutrinos. The accelerator program is based at CDF at Fermilab and CMS at CERN. It explores the nature of the strong force, via the production properties of heavy-quark states compared to the more copious light-quark states, as well as looking for evidence of new physics by precision measurements of weak decays of hadrons containing b-mesons. Work at CDF over the last decade has highlighted some unanticipated features of data, and our group is planning to continue these studies in CMS. Of course the opening of a new energy frontier at the Large Hadron Collider is an exciting time for particle physics. Our program includes active participation in searches for new phenomena, such as supersymmetry, with the expectation that we will find evidence not only for a new class of particles but also discover the source of the mysterious dark matter that permeates the universe.

The cosmological aspects of the supersymmetry searches are related to our new astro-particle experiment to probe energy release in Active Galactic Nuclei and other cosmic accelerators. High Energy Neutrino astronomy is a major new tool in our generation. We are developing a new experimental technique that complements the big experiments now underway at the South Pole and in the Mediterranean. We can tell the difference between individual point sources and a diffuse flux from a large region in space - a unique feature of our approach, and a crucial step forward for the field.